Hi all! The next Grimrain playtest will be available on the 8th Feb! Everybody who is currently signed up for playtest access will be able to join in for the playtest weekend. The playtest server will be available: from: Saturday 8th Feb at 9:00 AM (GMT+1) to: Monday 10th Feb at 8:00 AM (GMT+1) Playtest invites will be sent out approx an hour beforehand. What will be available in the playtest:

• Erstesdorf - The starting/tutorial zone
• Umber Pass - small party dungeon
• Gauntlet Caverns - solo/small party challenge dungeon
• Attenmoors - Second playable zone (partial)
• Six classes with specialisation trees
• Starting tier crafting and gathering professions
• Northern pass - An overworld dungeon

Please remember the game is in active development - there will likely be server crashes, bugs, errors, class balance issues, you name it! Any bugs you notice can be reported either on Discord or in Steam discussions :) Thanks again, and happy new year!

[ 2024-12-31 17:49:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Work has been taking place on the milestones for the next few months! The Attenmoors zone is mostly blocked out and is available for exploring in this build. Repeatable quests are available via the quest board, and will be a source of village reputation rewards, group hunts and new profession recipes Windows and Linux staging build has been updated to v0.0.450 with the following changes:

New

• Sitting, available via keybind, /sit command or clicking on stools/benches
• Attenmoors zone (work in progress)
• Quest boards in villages for repeatable quests
• Quit button on title screen
• Reworked crafting UI (and probably not for the last time)
• Grilled Spider Leg cooking recipe
• Underwater swimming breath meter
• Fall damage

Improvements

• Swimming particle and audio effects

Bug fixes

• Area spells could sometimes miss targets

[ 2024-10-23 21:27:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've been working through the bug fixes and feedback from the last playtest - the majority of which have been fixed in this patch. Windows and Linux builds have been updated to v0.0.435 with the following changes:

New

• Gamma graphics controls
• Character list will show if they were dead at the time of logging out

Balance

• Build Campfire now has 2 minute cooldown
• Profession XP gain from trivial crafts has been reduced
• Professions now cost a base amount to unlock at level 5
• Slowed down Vine lasher attack sequence
• Nicer notification text for GCD, cooldowns, and cancelled spells
• Trembling shout now reduces hit% attacks from target
• Increase some enemies run speed to pursue fast enough
• Wolves no longer drop currency
• Increase wolf mob spawn in starting zone
• Party members no longer gain XP for kills they are not involved, unless in an instance

Bug Fixes

• Melee range increased from 1m to 5m
• Repeated clicking on mining node no longer restarts mining
• Mining animation no longer sticks
• Mana bar now updates properly on party view
• Chicken mob is now just an NPC
• Intellect stat now has description
• Animations with missing on-hit sounds have been fixed
• Fixed movement and death animations for humanoids snapping
• Fixed spider death animation
• Craft points in crafting window now update after cast completion
• Crafting spell cooldown is now shown on crafting recipes
• Audio levels can now be adjusted, and using logarithmic scale
• Crystal caverns camera
• Quest completion window no longer scales oddly on ultra-wide screens
• Interaction windows will close when you move too far from the target
• Weapon requirements are now on spell tooltips
• Rock Salt is now a Reagent, Purple Posie is now a quest item
• Cooldown tracking on client updates correctly when switching character
• Swimming animation is synced
• Swimming on floor of pond no longer oscillates between swimming and walking
• Hidden action bars now no longer accept drag and drop
• Encounter now correctly tracks all players in range
• Updated colour post-processing to use ACES with gamma
• Strafing plays footsteps correctly
• Evading enemies now recover their health correctly
• Rock collision meshes more closely follow the visible rock
• Mobs no longer spawn on top of trees
• Mobs now correctly roam within their spawn zone
• Tree collision prevents walking inside the tree trunk
• Quests items are removed when completing or abandoning quest
• Fixed server crash with movement sync
• Spell effect no longer remains in place after target has died mid-cast
• Characters can log out when dead, but do not automatically respawn in the same location
• Dragging an item then closing the inventory UI no longer leaves item hovering on the screen
• Quest dialog for A time not yet forgotten, Leafy business, and Sausages have been updated
• Combined loot no longer stacks unstackable items
• Firewood and Copper no longer spawn repeatedly ontop of existing nodes
• Bea Trice no longer stops talking to you after completing all her quests
• Sausage quest now correctly respawns the sausage crate
• Blockage infront of the Umber Pass cave has been fixed
• Umber Pass and Crystal Caverns have been rescaled for level 10
• Removed Umber pass boss from overworld
• Increase drop-rate of loot from Ethesula
• Novice items can now be sold
• Fixed inventory sync server crash
• Double right-click no longer causes disconnect on slower connections (from outside EU)

[ 2024-09-29 17:49:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all! I'll shortly be sending out Playtest invites! Given the test server capacity, the initial invite list will be 100 people selected at random. I will send out more invites on Saturday evening (UK time) and increase the server capacity if it the server is stable. This way I can monitor the other game services such as the login and world servers, and ensure that those already on the server are able to explore the game world so far and provide gameplay feedback. The playtest server is: from: Saturday 21st Sept at 10:00 AM (GMT+1) to: Sunday 22nd Sept at 11:00 PM (GMT+1) Please remember this is the first playtest of the game - there may be server crashes, bugs, errors, you name it! Any bugs you notice can be reported either on Discord or in Steam discussions :) Thanks again!

[ 2024-09-20 16:30:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Windows and Linux builds have been updated to v0.0.421 with the following changes:

New

• Auto attack for all weapons: main-hand, off-hand, two-hand melee and ranged weapons

Improvements

• Correct player level for other players is show in nameplate and target bar
• Reduced network bandwidth usage when synchronising character equipment
• Auto-running and typing in chat no longer causes run animation to pause
• Trivial quests now reward correct amount of XP
• UI scaling of character creation window no longer causes overlaps
• Umberhide Foreman drops level appropriate loot
• Assorted map fixes
• Default spells for new characters are added to correct action bar slots
• Better error messages when failing to connect to server due to outdated client version, full server, or authentication failure

[ 2024-09-17 11:32:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Windows and Linux builds have been updated to v0.0.417 with the following changes:

New

• New combat and movement animations
• In-combat animation pose

Improvements

• Main hand and unarmed auto-attacks

[ 2024-09-13 12:23:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Windows and Linux builds have been updated to v0.0.413 with the following changes:

New

Character now enters combat animation pose when in combat Quest action sound effects for starting cancelling and abandoning quests Level up sound effects Weapon drops for all classes from level 3 to 8 Additional female character face style

Improvements

Ranger's clearing (first zone) doesn't grant discovery XP Smoother swim, walk, and strafe animations Remove level limit on health potion Fixed flickering tree shadows in starting zone due to culling bias Reworked class descriptions for all classes in create character screen Character name input is more helpful in preventing names that are too long or with with invalid characters

[ 2024-09-09 13:10:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! We're excited to announce that the first playtest for Grimrain will be avaiable soon! It's quite early days for the game, but there should be plenty to try out for a weekend. There will be bugs, there will be crashes, but we're looking forward to sharing the progress with people. The game is avaiable on Windows, Linux, and whilst it plays well on SteamDeck we still recommend a mouse and keyboard.

Available content in the Playtest

Edenmar (aka Tutorial Forest) - level up crafting, gathering, exploration
The boss of the first dungeon - available for players to tackle as a group
The Vine Lord - a world boss challenge for the playtest
So if this looks like it might be your cup of tea, sign up to the playtest and say hello! We'll be allowing groups of players to come in and explore together. Happy Adventuring, Grimrain Team

[ 2024-09-08 20:57:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Windows and Linux builds have been updated to v0.0.407 with the following changes:

New Features

• Charged spells - increase the potency of your abilities by charging the spell cast bar
• Seamless login - removed Discord authentication to log in via steam account directly
• Gauntlet - Crystal caverns. Complete the gauntlet without dying in the shortest time to earn a place on the leaderboard
• Mobs now have separate wander and pursuit movement speeds
• Character stats now have tooltips indicating how they affect your character
• Items and talents can modify casting speed

Improvements and Bug Fixes

• Gauntlet progress tracking now works correctly
• AoE can no longer hurt some NPCs
• Quest status updates are no longer delayed
• Equipment desync no longer occurs when leaving instanced area
• Fixed audio range of fires (camp fires, torches, bonfires)
• Character list no longer flickers briefly when loading
• Starting zone map touch-ups
• Window (character, quests, inventory, etc) can be reordered
• Alive enemies no longer pathfind around recently deceased enemies
• Wolf Cub no longer drops significantly higher quality gear (oops!)

Technical

• Updated Unity to 2022.3.43f1

Changes rolled up from 0.0.399 and 0.0.407

[ 2024-09-02 17:26:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Instanced environments such as dungeons, raids, trials, are common ways to provide a challenge for players - whether it be packs of strong enemies that must be crowd-controlled, or bosses which require teamwork and coordination of a dozen or more players, there must also be a place in the game world for this content to be tackled by small parties such a duos, or even solo players. The solo player is a little overlooked by MMOs - usually catered to by chores such as daily quests, crafting and gathering, or completionist activities like achievement hunting, mount/pet/follower farming, or glamour/transmogrification runs. Realistically, none of this gameplay is particularly challenging! In order for our dungeon content to be made available to as many players as possible, we have built the first iteration of our content scaling. It works using two simple scaling factors:

• Party size - Parties below the expected size will receive a proportional boost to HP and outgoing damage
• Player levels - If the player with the highest level in the party has a level lower than expected, an additional HP and damage boost will be granted

Conversely, if the player level is above the expected range, then they will receive a percentage reduction to damage and HP. The intention with this is that dungeon content is never trivially out-levelled - better gear, abilities, and player skill will still have a more significant impact.

Benefits to playing in a full-sized party

Apart from it being more fun to play with others? Well, there's some definite incentives to running a dungeon as a group, namely: loot! Running a dungeon as an un-boosted party will give rewards for the following:

• Boss loot including trophies
• Dungeon achievements (boss kills, first time completion)

Sometimes it's a struggle to find a group as the player might not have the time to wait to form one, or maybe they just want to put on a podcast, do a few laps of their favourite dungeon and practice their combat rotation (on something that isn't a training dummy!). In this case, running a dungeon solo, duo (or any number less than the required party size), the player will still receive loot dropped by non-boss enemies, and quest items from bosses. Boss loot such as gear and weaponry will only be available as a party.

Conclusion

TLDR: Solo players can enjoy challenging instanced dungeon content It is simpler and less wasteful to build dungeons with flexibility in the number of players than to make dungeons tailored to specific player counts, and potentially limit what can be enjoyed as a solo/duo group. This capability of scaling the dungeon difficulty also allows the introduction of extra random events such as World of Warcraft's Mythic+ system, albeit with a bit more player agency than a weekly rotation!

[ 2024-06-25 19:48:16 CET ] [ Original post ]